Memory of the Waters
by ShiningSugar14
Summary: In order to retrieve some outsourced data on Weiss' virus, the Tsviets travel to Silent Hill. No pairings.
1. Chapter 1

This idea has been spinning around with me for a few months. I'm only just getting to writing anything down.

Dedicated to everyone who has encouraged me, but specifically ReadingChick, Zaz, Yukiko, and Daemonesca. Also dedicated to Bri, Jay, Russ, Kat, and my advisers at school.

Necessary backstory for Silent Hill: It's a resort town of horrors that tends to change depending on the mindset of a given character.

Necessary backstory for FFVII: The Tsviets are a team of supersoldiers whose leader, Weiss, is dying.

I don't own either game, nor will I ever make money from them.

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><p><strong><span>Memory of the Waters<span>**

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><p><strong>70:40:11 remaining<strong>

The pressure had been immense, surely on no one moreso than Weiss. Each Tsviet was at a computer, save for Shelke, who was fully immersed in her SND equipment. All of them were united by a common goal, this time one that didn't result in bloodshed. This was to help, rather than to hurt. They only had a precious two days, twenty-two hours, and forty-minutes after all. After a solid hour spent in cyber space, with all the Tsviets gathered around her, Shelke had to remove her heavy, SND helmet and report: "Nothing. There is no data that I can access that will help us."

Weiss had been watching the screen on his monitor intently until Shelke said those words. "Absolutely nothing?"

"Nothing." Shelke set aside the helmet and reached for the water she had laid on the ground earlier. Shelke didn't usually do that, since there was no shortage of people willing to open the bottle prematurely and fry the system. Weiss' oncoming death was apparently safer for Shelke than any rules the Restrictors had put in place. "I am still waiting for our outsourced systems' data, but I doubt that there will be anything important inside those reports."

"Outsourced data," Rosso scoffed, examining the points of her gauntlets. Her expression gave one the impression that Rosso didn't particularly care for the data, and perhaps she didn't. Rosso cared about results, about the interpretation of Shelke's data, usually because it resulted in orders. Orders usually meant bloodshed, which Rosso could always get behind. The process of waiting for the call bored her usually, yet this was different. These results would decide the outcome of Weiss' life.

A squat machine stirred to life in the corner of the room and began spitting out paper. With Shelke being too exhausted to do anything but nurse her water bottle, Argent crossed the room and retrieved the reports. With each flipped page, the furrows in Argent's frown deepened. By the time she reached the bottom of the stack, Argent had composed her face into something more neutral. "It's as Shelke predicted. There is nothing."

"You're kidding." Nero got up from his terminal, retrieved the papers from Argent and began sifting through them himself. He read all the reports twice before handing them over to Weiss with a heavy sigh. Weiss took it in the laborious manner he would take a large bag of bricks.

"This can't be everything," he said. "We have more laboratories than this."

"I will make certain that all of the labs sent reports." Instead of taking the Net Dive for another run, Shelke sat at a regular terminal. She slumped over the keys slightly, but remained upright. Soon, there was nothing but furious typing. Shelke read the names of places that had reported out loud. They were places that no one could glean anything from, least of all the three who had been born in DeepGround. For example Costa De Sol represented sunny beaches Argent and Azul, who had been there once each. For Shelke, it brought up vague memories from something that might have been a dream. Weiss, Nero, and Rosso only knew that there were beaches there from reading about it.

"That's all of our la—" Shelke cut herself off, staring in puzzlement at one city that had popped up on the list. It was significant for two reasons. One was that Shelke had never heard of a place called Silent Hill. Another was that it was the one city had not given Shelke any kind of data regarding Weiss' condition. The puzzling thing was that Shelke had never seen the name in any of her previous searches. To withhold the information on the basis that it was suspect could be considered treason. "I believe I have located something of interest. One location has not reported back to us, due to what appears to be a faulty connection."

"Which one?"

"Silent Hill."

There was a sudden flurry of keystrokes as everyone began running through databases, searching for all the information they could ever find about Silent Hill. As they found information, they reported verbally, in fragments: Scarcely a city, more akin to a town; an old resort town; near a lake, Toluca Lake; several fires, but a quaint place in the pictures. There were two hospitals, a penitentiary, and an asylum that could possibly have Weiss' data. Alchemilla hospital didn't have a computer system, and the penitentiary would not do scientific research. It was down to Brookhaven Hospital or Cedar Grove Sanitarium.

After some silence, Nero was the only one with the mettle to ask, "Weiss?"

"We don't have any other options." Weiss stood and leaned against one of the terminals. "One of those places has our data, and it's just a matter of our retrieving it. We can repair their system and retrieve the data from here. If not, there should be hard copies of the data laying around and we can take that, just to be certain. We leave in one hour. Prepare accordingly."

"Hail Weiss," Azul murmured, more in reverence than anything else. He left the room, presumably to secure transportation for the journey.

"Hail Weiss," Nero, Argent, and Rosso echoed. Shelke continued to nurse her water before responding with her call. One by one, the Tsviets left the room, eventually leaving Shelke to herself, still sipping on water. On the screen that Rosso had been reading from, the phrase Silent Hill in black text on the white screen stuck out to Shelke, the only dark entity in a world of light. Shelke, though not a believer in omens (how could she be after DeepGround?), couldn't help but darkly reflect that the trip to Silent Hill might be the last thing they ever did.

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><p><strong>69:40:43 remaining<strong>

Their plan was a simple one. Commandeer a helicopter and fly out to Silent Hill, a trip that would take easily twelve hours. Shelke insisted that the trip would take maybe nine with her modifications to the vehicle. She had also wired it to auto-pilot to their destination before promptly passing out in the smallest corner of the cockpit. Since their trip did not require a window, the helicopter did not have one. There was no need for it, and Rosso mourned the lack. She was determined to see the sky, keeping that goal glowing on the horizon of her mission. Azul was the next to trudge in, carrying an ammunition box with him. He sat across from Rosso, diagonal from Shelke, and stared into the blank space above Rosso's head. He did not move. The last three entered finally, each taking seats that their comrades had left. Everyone's weapons made small, clacking noises against the helicopter's interior, as well as the blades of others.

"Rest up," Weiss advised, putting a parachute on as a safety precaution. Everyone else followed his example, as was typical. "I understand that the past few days have been…" He struggled for the word, but only for a moment. The moment it took to realize that "overwhelming" was an insult to their skills and "stressful" didn't exist. "Difficult," he finished. "We have ten hours. Make the most of them."

One by one, they dropped off to sleep. They were super-soldiers, perfection in motion. They were killing machines, either born and bred or found and made, but they were still living weapons. They were also humans.

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><p><strong>59:58:07 remaining<strong>

Weiss had only meant to sleep for maybe five hours, but there had been something exhausting him into sleeping double that time. Ever since the final Restrictor's death, there had been something peculiar. He had assumed it was the virus, making him feel as though he shouldered an enormous burden, but there was little data to suggest any psychosomatic symptoms came with the disease that would kill him in less than three days.

The thing that woke Weiss up was noise. The control panel had begun furiously beeping. It was an indication of losing altitude. Nero was faster than Weiss was, scrambling to the door and flinging it open. He grabbed onto the top rim of the door, prompting Weiss to run over and secure him as a spotter. With Weiss carefully holding onto his waist, Nero gingerly raised his head over the roof to see the propellers. Weiss guided Nero's body back into the security of the room. His brother's face was spattered with blood, sending Weiss' pulse sky-rocketing. Thankfully, Nero's face didn't show any pain, only grimness. The blood wasn't his.

"There's something caught in the blades," he reported. "We need to jump."

Shelke's stomach nearly fell out of her at the word "jump." One of the few benefits of DeepGround had been that all heights were either simulated by computers or man-made. Shelke rarely had to deal with them herself, since she almost never went on field missions in the first place. Jumping out of a helicopter into unknown territory was neither a simulation nor a man-made test that others had passed before her. This was real, more real than anything. The fog that rose and consumed them was real, blocking the ground, sky, and horizon from view. Dread built up into Shelke's body as she watched Argent, Azul, and Rosso jump out into the void. She was next, followed by Nero and Weiss.

"Jump!" Nero hissed.

Shelke hesitated, edging backwards. "I—"

The fog came closer than Shelke had ever wanted as she was thrust forward into it. Suddenly, she was falling through the whiteness. Deepground had beaten the instinct to cry out, but Shelke could still feel a scream building in her, crawling sickly up through her throat and clawing its way between her lips.

-END CHAPTER 1-

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><p>Constructive criticism is welcomed and encouraged!<p> 


	2. Chapter 2

I noticed the Tsviets were getting no Valentine's day love and resolved to fix it. With... this. So, yes. Happy Valentine's Day!

Disclaimer: Don't own them. Wish I did. Then Weiss would _have_ to be my Valentine.

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><p><strong>59:52:44 remaining<strong>

The team had been split. In Azul's opinion, this was the exact reason that they should have brought more men. His ideal team would have been the five Tsviets, Argent (who counted in her own way), and maybe the top six candidates for becoming a Tsviet. Azul snorted derisively. There probably weren't even six candidates that would satisfy conditions. Weiss had shot down the idea of taking more troops in, saying that maximum discretion was a large priority. The compound would scarcely know that they were gone, or even that power had so recently changed hands. One of Argent's pre-mission tasks had been queuing up enough missions to last for two weeks, and telling all instructors that all crises would be a "test of their competence." The split in the group secretly pleased Azul. He was one to divide and conquer, but Weiss wanted to join together some of the best forces for a mission that added up to restarting an internet connection. Pitiful, but Azul would never question Weiss' commands.

The other thing that pleased Azul about the situation was that Shelke was not present any longer. While Rosso was contemptuous of the girl and Nero was simply indifferent, Azul _loathed_ her. To crush her weak, pitiful form between his fingers would be a pleasure. He was made to abstain from such a pleasure by Weiss' presence, Argent's near-maternal care (Azul had to quell a laugh at that. Maternity! In DeepGround!), and that shield materia that Shelke hid behind so well.

"Why haven't they met up with us?" Argent murmured, studying the map intently.

"Lost in the fog, perhaps?"

"Nero's sense of direction is better than that." Argent traced the roads with her index finger. "He cleared directional training faster than any other soldier. He holds the record."

"Holding a training record means nothing in a field mission."

Argent didn't respond, only traced her finger across the lake on the map. With the modifications Shelke had made to the helicopter, it was possibly for the helicopter to cross the lake in very little time. There was an even chance that the others were already on the other side of the lake, in South Silent Hill.

The PHS buzzed against Argent's hip. She withdrew it and checked the message. From Weiss: "Proceed to CGS. We will investigate BHH. Plan to meet at the intersection of W. Sandford st. and Nathan ave. in 36 hours."

Argent held the PHS out to Rosso and Azul. "Weiss' orders. Investigate Cedar Grove Sanitarium and report to an intersection on the west side of Silent Hill in 36 hours."

"Simple." Azul took the map from Argent, neither fiercely, nor gently. He pointed a finger ahead of them. "The helicopter going to Brookhaven went that way. Our destination is therefore…" Taking a moment to orient himself properly, Azul pointed somewhere to Argent's right. "This way."

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><p><strong>59:43:22 remaining<strong>

"Lost," Weiss muttered, not for the first time since landing. He was clearing a path with his swords, boots, and words. He could have kicked himself for giving Argent the only real map. The text had barely sent, and his PHS was simply refusing to show the map he had downloaded back in DeepGround. He was hiking through the mist on Nero's intuition and his own faith in his brother's navigational abilities. Nero and Shelke followed him through the long weeds, his soldiers through opaque nothingness. "Lost," he said. His words were thick with snarls that would be detrimental to the mission if released. "Lost in the five seconds you hesitated."

Facts were the only things that mattered in DeepGround and the fact that Weiss' statement was unbiased was what made it more difficult to hear. Yes, Shelke's hesitation had been the reason they were stranded in _terra incognita. _Even worse was the fact that it was no one else's fault. Even so, the words that Weiss left to the mist were much more cutting; Weak-willed child; Miserable failure. Her gaze was downcast, focused on the faint glow of mako in the tips of her shoes. She watched the glow get swallowed by the dried weeds and earth. Each admonishment that Weiss didn't say pushed Shelke to create new ones, longer ones, a new rebuke with each swing of the sword. Couldn't save yourself if you had to. Lay down and die.

"Lost."

"I… I apologize for…"

"Silence."

Shelke snapped her mouth shut. Apologies would not get them to their target destination, and they all knew it. Nero looked back to her. He didn't seem resentful or even properly angry. Anger by proxy. Upset because Weiss was upset. That was rare, as Nero was always constraining some kind of rage behind his calm voice and deadened eyes. The glow of his red eyes in this town was muted, making him seem less angry. Almost as though he had released it in some other manner, as though the trip had stripped him of his anger.

They found a road after a few more minutes of misty nothing. Weiss climbed over the guardrail and looked to Nero. "Which way?"

Nero looked between his left and right. Each side held nothing but mist, so it was difficult for Shelke to see exactly was Nero was basing his judgment on. It might have even been a guess when Nero pointed to the right. "This way."

Having found a path, Weiss had stopped talking about how lost they were. The mist did not. The only sounds on the roads were the sounds of their boots. Just because they had found a road didn't mean that they knew for certain what was at the end of it. The tension of not knowing was eating Shelke alive.

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><p><strong>59:29:11 remaining<strong>

The sanitarium was a dark place, Rosso approved of that. What she didn't approve of was the fact that, even though she had been outside, she had not seen the sky properly. Only fog for miles and miles, up further than she could have ever imagined. That desolate blankness was not the sky though, and Rosso disregarded it. It wasn't the sky, in her opinion. It was even less real than the images on the projector screens in DeepGround.

The asylum felt like a womb. It was warm, compared to the chill outside and the frigidity of DeepGround corridors. The air inside was heavy with heat. Rosso had never experience such stillness, even in the presence of corpses. It was palpable. She sauntered along behind Azul and Argent. Weiss was important, but Rosso wanted to savor being above ground and refused to be rushed through the dark, warm silence.

"Conveniently placed," Argent murmured. She and Azul were standing over a map that had been carefully laid across a coffee table. "What are the chances that the obstruction to the signal was what a web is to a fly's life?"

"A trap," Azul rumbled. "This was planned."

"So what? We can cut them down." Rosso ran her finger along her blade. "We are Tsviets. We are inhuman. They are nothing."

Argent picked up the map. "Three floors. Azul, what do you make of splitting up?"

He was silent for a moment. "It could be wise, if Rosso's estimation of our strength is correct. Each to a floor."

Argent handed one page of the map to Azul and one to Rosso. Azul checked their location versus his current one and turned to find the staircase. Rosso examined the page that she had been given. First floor.

To her left, there was a hiss of air and Argent's shoulders dropped. Rosso spoke to the other woman easily. "Troubles?"

"No. None at all."

"Good. It wouldn't do to have reservations at this stage."

"I agree." Rosso could have sworn that she saw the fabric across Argent's pale throat rise and fall. Rosso's teeth glimmered as her heels clacked against the floor. Perhaps they weren't precisely inhuman.

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><p><strong>58:28:33 remaining<strong>

After they had found the road, finding the hospital was easy. In a matter of an hour, the bland, imposing building loomed over them. Weiss strode up to the building and swung the double-doors open. Nero, lurking close behind his brother, watched as an inch of dust went fluttering into the surrounding darkness.

"Ugh…" Weiss stepped across the threshold. Nero followed, noting the lack of friction that residual dust left behind. Combat would need to be handled with that as a consideration. "This area has been abandoned for a while. Maybe a year or two."

"A while? I wouldn't be surprised if the true reason we lack data is due to a lack of electricity." Nero flicked a switch on the wall up and down to demonstrate his point. "Condemnation would be a suitable fate. Shelke, you're certain that this is the proper location?"

"Yes. Brookhaven hospital." Shelke closed the door behind them, plunging them into darkness. The only light in the hallway was the dim, blue glow of their uniforms. Weiss activated a fire materia and the area around them was illuminated in a warm, amber glow. Tiny motes of dust burst into flame, but the stillness was still unnerving. Shelke could see by the light of Weiss' materia. Nero couldn't use one, but he saw well enough in the dark.

Shelke stepped up to a bulletin board. A map was haphazardly tacked to the upper-left corner. "Very convenient."

Weiss looked. Nodded. "Nero."

As soon as Nero nodded back, Weiss walked up and ripped the map from the board. Nero readied his pistols at the sound of ripping paper. No ambush. No surprises. Not even an accompanying noise. The three stood frozen for a few moments more. Nero lowered his guns and Shelke took her hand off the materia she had been fingering.

"A map, then?"

"Yeah… Five floors total, if you count the accessible roof and basement as floors."

"Shall we part ways?"

"Yes. Shelke, investigate the second floor. I will take the basement and first floor. Nero, take the third floor and roof. Are we all clear on what we're looking for?"

The response came in stereo. "Yes, Weiss."

Weiss carefully tore the scrap of paper containing all of the second floor off and handed it to Shelke. He gave Nero the rest. They dispersed like mist, finally back on target.

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><p>END CHAPTER 2<p> 


	3. Chapter 3

We've hit chapter 3! YES! Thanks so much to everyone who is following this fic, following _me_, and leaving reviews. You guys are my heroes!

Quick warning: We're starting to get into the weird, gory aspects of Silent Hill. Just warning for people who weren't expecting it.

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><p><strong>58:27:43 remaining<strong>

The basement of Brookhaven Hospital was dimly lit, only by emergency lights that were either sparse or broken on the first floor. It felt like more traps on the part of some entity unknown to him. At least that's how Weiss saw it. The maps couldn't have been a coincidence. There was clearly more to this situation. Maybe some kind of back-up plan for the Restrictors. In addition to the virus, have one more line of defense guarding the antidote. It was cunning, the sort of back-up plan that DeepGround utilized frequently enough. He wouldn't be surprised if something lurched out of the darkness and gutted him. Weiss kept a cautious left hand over one of his swords while he checked through the basement.

The electrical control room was a tiny room, housing a large generator that appeared to be off. That was odd. Would the enemy not benefit from electricity as well? Advanced DeepGround technology indeed, Weiss thought as he flicked on the control panel. The generator whirred to life. That would help to guide Shelke, anyway. Nero was fine in the darkness.

As Weiss left the electrical room, he noticed that the lights had turned on. While that was probably not the best situation for the enemy, he was confident that he could cut them down. With the help of the lights, Weiss took note of the creeping, black mold, the missing tiles in the walls, and the holes. Tiny bullet-holes, all uniform, and scarcely larger than his finger. Perhaps someone had tried to make an escape. As Weiss finished this thought, he came across a smear of blood that trailed from around the corner to his feet. He laughed, a small one that didn't carry out into the stairway. Perhaps someone hadn't made it.

Weiss tried the pump room and storage room and discovered that they were locked. Or at least that the locks were broken. Weiss could turn the handle well enough, but the door didn't budge. Interesting. Cutting the lock would be rather useless, but shooting it might work. Weiss stepped to the other side of the hallway and fired a bullet into the door of the pump room. He went to open the door, only to find that it still would not open for him. Perplexing, now.

The boiler room was properly locked, with no key in sight. No turning the door-knob here. It would seem that Weiss' search of the basement had been a failed one. That was fine. Weiss didn't really think someone would keep important information in a boiler room, but it never hurt to check.

Wonder of wonders, the storage room actually did open for him. There were items in the cob-web ridden room, ranging everywhere from practical to completely useless. Among the practical items was a key. It made Weiss think again of traps. Why keep an important key on a store shelf? So that no one will find it, except someone who was actually looking. Thinking that he had solved his boiler room problem, Weiss took the key and turned it over to check the key-tag. This was for the Doctor's Lounge on the first floor. More of a setback, than anything, really. Weiss pocketed the key and headed up over the stairs.

His back was turned to the walls when the blood began to drip out of the bullet-holes on the wall, like a fresh wound.

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><p><strong>58:26:03 remaining<strong>

As soon as Rosso was completely alone, she punched a wall and let a small noise of anger burst out of her throat. It wasn't the sky, or even the fact that they were on a trivial errand of a mission, but it was her apparent teammates. Azul was fine. Rosso could live with Azul because Azul understood her operation, at least to some degree. He would never be able to predict her, in the same way that a scientist could never predict a bouncing ball beyond its first two impacts. They knew about how it functioned, but never precisely. Azul was the same with Rosso, knowing that she would snap eventually, but never what would set her off.

Rosso had learned to live with her own instability. Her emotions were volatile and she had come to accept it. She was complacent when she was stable, but could slip just as easily into a rage and find herself justified in either state. Rosso didn't understand her madness, didn't pretend to understand it like the Researchers did, but she was content to live in its whirlwind. Rosso enjoyed it, enjoyed the feeling of a lack of control, enjoyed the feeling of a human being's pulse falling in frequency and intensity, and she enjoyed the way that blood congealed underneath her gauntlets' nails until it was solid grit. She enjoyed it.

Argent was something that set Rosso off. Argent's methods, Argent's level-headed behavior, Argent's always being right and polite and so restrained! Rosso stormed off to check doors for her fool errand, still thinking about all the ways she wanted Argent dead. Rosso wanted to see Argent unrestrained and screaming, just once. Wishful thinking, Rosso thought, opening a door at random. Argent was excitable as an iron bar.

Rosso opened another door. Nothing was inside, and that was only slightly disappointing. As Rosso was about to close it and try another, she saw a sheet of paper sitting on the desk. Check everything, she supposed, so that no one could say that she had walked directly past the cure. It would be a failure on her part and the only thing Rosso hated more than other people was other people saying she was in the wrong somehow.

_Staff Memo: _

_A reminder that all staff members should pay attention to where they have placed their keys. They must not fall into patients' hands. _

Underneath, Rosso read the handwritten:

_Girl in A6 has been sewing them into her clothes. Left all of them in the laundry room, behind the detergent. – Nancy_

Thank you for the tip, Nancy, Rosso thought to herself as she left the room and began searching for the laundry room. It wasn't far, only a hallway away. Rosso opened the laundry room's door. Nothing of importance, save for the box of detergent on a shelf on the far wall. Sure enough, there was a small, plastic bin behind the detergent. There was only a single key, marked "Orderly."

As Rosso pocketed it, the paint on the door began to crack and peel.

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><p><strong>58:25:08 remaining<strong>

As Nero ascended the stairs, he was solely focused on his mission and its outcome. He didn't care at all about research and experimental results. In fact, after what they had done to him, Nero had come to dislike experiments. He didn't care about Shelke's data, save for the fact that the information could save Weiss. Saving Weiss was worth anything. Nero would let masked Researchers stab a million needles into his back, inject as much poison as they would like into his blood, and he would endure it. As long as Weiss would be unharmed. Such sentiments were kind thoughts, but unrealistic, impractical, and not helpful. Nero could be helpful by finding those results.

Inwardly, as he opened the door to the hospital's roof, he scoffed. Nero was a Tsviet. He always got results.

The roof was barren, save for a small structure to his left. He checked it first and, according to his map, it was the elevator's control room. He opened it up. Nothing worth noting, he decided. Everything appeared operational, with even lights blinking. Convenient, he thought. Either Weiss had restored the power or the hospital was not as abandoned as he had surmised. The only question was whether they were anticipated or not. Even if they were anticipated, Nero didn't think opposition would hinder them.

The third floor was in a similar state to the first floor. Bland and covered with mold. He wrinkled his nose at the state of the place. Contagions were not commonplace in DeepGround. He consulted his map. The third floor seemed to be a place reserved for the truly insane. The equivalent of a psychiatric ward, he supposed. He went around, opening doors and checking them. The rooms marked "Day Room" and "Store Room" were broken somehow, but the "Special Treatement" room was merely locked.

Nero also made a point of checking the elevator. During one of his field tests, Nero had turned off the lights in a main elevator and hid in the shadows until the recruits he was being tested against entered the elevator. He slaughtered each of the small groups when the doors closed, just to trim the numbers down. It was a clever tactic, in his opinion. He would not put it past the current opponents. He doubted very much that the enemy could use the same tactics that he did, though. Still, the elevator was an excellent hiding place and ambush point.

The last area to check was a long line of fourteen rooms, tiny cubicles that Nero highly suspected could only contain a bed and little else. Rooms S1, S2, and S3 were all locked. Room S4 contained a bed, as Nero had thought it would, along with a nightstand and a sheet of paper taped up to the wall. "I DON'T WANT ANYMORE SHOTS" was written in grey crayon in a child's scrawl. Nero frowned at the paper, but pocketed the sheet anyway.

Room S5 was also open to him, though it contained nothing at all. Room S6 and S7 were locked. Room S8 was a peculiarity; It contained a box on the bed. Nothing to indicate the contents of the box though. Curious. Nero left it alone, examining the other rooms, in what was quickly becoming a tedious process. Thankfully, he only had another six to go through. Nero thought it was unlikely that classified data would be hidden in a patient's room, but his orders were to search.

Room S9 was empty and S10 was locked. Room S11 contained still another letter, from a different child apparently. "Billy has a monster in him. The Docktors can make it go away. I fownd their seecrit recipe and put it in my trezure chest. Theyll never find my key." Secret recipe, eh? Nero kept the note, putting it alongside the paper about the shots.

The last three rooms were locked. Nero stared blankly at the notes. He was following advice from children, it seemed. As he turned to get to the last few rooms, on the other side of the hallway (a bathroom, showering room, and examination room), Nero didn't see the veins of red suffocating the blank, white-ish paint.

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><p><strong>58:26:03 remaining<strong>

Honor and duty went hand-in-hand when Argent lived in Wutai. She had a duty to honor her village by serving as a swordswoman in the resistance movements against ShinRa. Likewise, she honored her village by doing her duty, bringing victory to Wutai alongside her countrymen. The synchronization of work and emotion was easy for her to reconcile when she was home. She would not be dishonored for shedding enemy blood because they would dare to destroy her home. Argent was able to live as a swordswoman and the daughter of a blacksmith. Her existence was peaceful.

Later, her philosophy was overdue for a solid revision in the opinion of the ShinRa operatives that took her away to serve in their military. Duty to the company came before everything else in ShinRa, honor be damned. The mission at hand came before other peoples' lives, Argent's own life, and everything else behind that. When she entered the ShinRa military, they had beaten that into her head. Literally, when she came to DeepGround. She could crawl back to the DeepGround, only when the mission was done. The rate at which Argent climbed the stairs was quick, but the entire mission had an unidentifiable impossibility to it and she felt as though this would be a crawl mission.

Truly, Argent thought as she shoved the door to the second floor open, the mission was crawling. First, they had been separated. Then they had made their way to the asylum, only for it to be conveniently open and potentially an enemy base. Lastly, Rosso was acting like a fast-moving thunderhead on the horizon. Azul was doing nothing about her behavior. In fact, Azul seemed to be encouraging Rosso in some ways, allowing her to go off on her own. Azul outranked Argent on a technicality, but Argent possessed seniority over him. She respected Azul as a fellow Tsviet, but Argent was not willing to let Azul's combative behavior sabotage the mission.

It made sense for the files to be in one of four locations on the second floor: The staff office, the library, the administration office, or the archives. Argent made these rooms a priority. The staff office was locked. Argent entered the second floor's lobby, and then the library. That was open and she entered the room. It was dusty, but well-organized. Argent had no idea of what to look for. A computer would be the obvious thing, but she was uncertain if the power was even working. She turned her attention to the books. Nearly all of them were medical journals, not published by the asylum. No, it made sense that she would want to try looking through the publications of the asylum. Perhaps not even those, but the hard-copy files in the filing cabinets towards the back of the room.

Argent crossed the room, opened one of the filing cabinets, withdrew a stack of files, and began to painstakingly read them. As she read, the room began to deteriorate in the most horrible ways.

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><p><strong>58:26:02 remaining<strong>

Shelke didn't feel very much. Physically, she had been beaten so many times that feeling was no longer a deciding factor in whether or not she fought. Mentally, a Net Dive was the only thing that could exhaust her and that was an obligation that she did not consider to be painful, only dangerous. Lastly, Shelke felt as though she no longer possessed emotions some days. There was nothing in DeepGround to be happy about since she did not get swept up into fights, kills, or morbidity the way her fellow Tsviets did. Negative reactions, like crying and defiance, had been beaten out of her long ago. Shelke passed long stretches in hazes of neutrality, not caring about anything except the tasks that were being put in front of her. The mission to Silent Hill was the first time Shelke had felt anything other than apathy in weeks. First, she had felt regret, guilt, and inferiority when her fears altered the mission's path. Next, she was feeling irritated by her commanders' behaviors and orders.

Shelke openly acknowledged that she was not in a position to criticize the mission given to her, but she felt as though she was being belittled by Weiss and Nero. She was being given an order that was equivalent to "Go play and don't break anything." It was annoying, the way mosquitoes had been annoying in childhood. The sense that they simply wanted her out of the way was grating.

The second floor was bare and abandoned, just like the first floor had been. Similar layout, as well. Shelke followed the hallway until she found a group of doors and began trying them. The first door that opened led her to what looked like a laundry room, or at least a linen closet. The room contained six industrial-sized hampers, each filled with what looked like patient gowns. Shelke had only needed to wear a patient gown once in her life, when she had an ear infection and needed to be taken to the hospital as a child. The gowns in Banora had been a soft blue color, but these were a sickly shade of green.

Something caught Shelke's eye as she crossed the room to examine the shelves of the room. A shining, silver key was nestled into one of the hampers. As though someone knew that Shelke would be looking for something and had laid the key out for her as a sign. Shelke looked at the key distrustfully. On one hand, it could be necessary. On the other hand, it could be a trap. Shelke removed one of her sabers and activated it. Shelke jabbed the canvas of the hamper through, leaving a singed hole. The clothing shifted, but there was no indication that a person lay waiting in the hamper for her. Shelke repeated the process on the other five hampers, each receiving a quick stab and a burnt hole roughly the size of Shelke's palm. The room was safe, or at least uninhabited. Shelke removed the key from the hamper, turning the cold metal over in her hand. It had a tag on it, marked with the word "Pool."

A dilemma, then. On one hand, Shelke's only orders were to investigate the second floor. In a way, she was not cleared to investigate the first floor, which was Weiss' territory. On the other hand, Shelke was not about to allow them to accuse her of not following clues through. Shelke would go to the pool and, if Weiss found her on the first floor, she would explain the situation. Weiss was reasonable, moreso than Rosso or Restrictors were. He would understand her.

As Shelke left the room, her sneakers made an unpleasant squelching sound as they made contact with a thick layer of human flesh that was coating the floor of the hospital hallways.

* * *

><p><strong>58:25:16 remaining<strong>

The only person Azul could depend on for actual results was himself. He didn't distrust Weiss' orders or judgment calls, but orders and judgments were not results. Weiss would not be brought to life on his own orders and judgments. He would also not be helped by Nero's fervor, Argent's dedication, or Shelke's approach. He needed results and Azul felt that he was the best man for those. Results were easy to get for him.

As Azul descended the stairs, entering the basement of the asylum, something odd began to happen to the walls. The paint began peeling and Azul laid a hand on the cannon he had holstered on his waist. He had heard about using heat in a weaponized manner and that seemed to be the tactic. Yet Azul perceived no temperature change, only the sounds of paint chips skittering to the floor. Something was shifting at the bottom of the staircase. Azul's heart leapt up and his lips curled into a grin. A fight.

Fights were the only enjoyment Azul truly got out of life. They were challenges for the sake of challenges, but they were also a way to determine superiority. Intelligence was measured too many ways for Azul to base status on that. Combat was clear-cut in the same way mathematics tended to be. There was either a winner or a loser. A draw was a fight that hadn't been completed yet.

Azul approached the bottom of the stairs much more rapidly than he would have otherwise. At the bottom of the stairs was… Something. It was not human, Azul was certain of that much. At the same time, it was not a monster he was familiar with. Even more interesting, then. Squinting through the darkness, Azul began to realize that this was not the sort of monster one generally found on The Planet. For one thing, it was large and bloated, but still mobile. For another, it was pale in the same way Rosso was pale. It was a pallor only associated with those who had never seen sunlight and never would. The creature's veins stood out against its skin, each about the thickness of a drinking straw. It made feverish sucking noises, as though feasting on a kill. Very interesting.

As the bloated creature fed, Azul made no attempt to disguise his presence and walked directly up to it. He had hoped that it would stop its meal and fight. Instead, it continued eating. Azul did not exist, as far as the monster was concerned. Azul brought one of his feet down on it, squashing it like a fat spider. It popped grotesquely, revealing that it was, in fact, pregnant. The fetus was underdeveloped, but a perfect clone of its horrid mother. Azul crushed that, too. Just to be safe.

Clearly, they had done experimental research at this asylum. Monsters like this didn't exist in DeepGround. The equipment had yet to be seen, but Azul surmised that it was all located in the basement somewhere. Kicking a wall to dislodge the pieces of monster stuck in his boots, Azul pressed on. He was not afraid of what this asylum would dare to throw at him.

* * *

><p>END OF CHAPTER 3<p> 


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